“I had someone a bit…softer in mind. An academic or a poet.”
“I understand.” He didn’t really. Bloody hell, a soft-spoken, nose-in-a-book, milquetoast for Evie? She’d run roughshod over him in a fortnight and leave both of them miserable. It seemed wiser, however, to say he understood than to say anything that began with “bloody hell.”
Lady Thurston sighed. “That choice, I think, would have been a mistake.”
It bloody well would have been.
She tilted her head at him. “Do you love her?”
“I’ve been in love with her for nearly eight years,” he admitted.
“Eight?” Lady Thurston gaped at him. He wouldn’t have thought her the sort of woman who gaped, but there it was. “Eight years? And you are only now getting around to doing something about it?”
“Apparently.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake.” She rose from her chair. “I shall fetch her from her room immediately. Eight years,” she breathed again as she headed toward the door. “Honestly.”
He waited for Evie with something approximating patience for twenty minutes.
Twenty excruciatingly long minutes of pacing the parlor, eyeing the decanter of brandy, picking up and studying feminine little bits and pieces in which he hadn’t the slightest interest.
Would Evie want to fill their home with such things?
“Do you have a fondness for rosebud vases, Mr. McAlistair?”
He set the vase down and turned slowly.
There she was. And there was that sweet pang he felt every time he saw her.
She was so heart-wrenchingly beautiful…and she looked so terrifyingly resolved. He could see it in the stiff posture of her small frame and the way she kept her chocolate eyes shuttered—she’d given up on him.
“Have I come too late, Evie?”
Please, God, don’t let it be too late.
Only a slight widening of the eyes told him the question had taken her aback. “Too late for what?”
“For you.”
She twisted her lips and stepped into the room. “Is this another demand of marriage?”
“No.” He forced a breath into a chest gone tight. “It is a request to court.”
He had the small pleasure of seeing her stop in her tracks. “To court?”
“If you would allow it,” he answered with a nod. “I have obtained your cousin’s approval and your aunt’s.”
“Lady Thurston?” She sat down heavily on the settee. “You asked Lady Thurston’s permission to court me?”
“Yes. If you—” He swallowed hard. “If you could find it in yourself to forgive me for my earlier…stupidity.”
Very well, it wasn’t the most eloquent of speeches, but it was effective. Her expression softened—just a little about the eyes and mouth, but it was enough to give him hope.
“McAlistair—”
She cut off when he held up his hand to plead for silence. “Before you make a decision, any decision, you should be aware of who I am. Who I was.”
“Who you were?”
He nodded and placed his hands behind his back where she couldn’t see them curl into tight fists. “You have asked me of my past, of my days as a soldier.”
“Yes,” she said with a small, careful nod.
“I…I was not a soldier, not in the traditional sense.” He cleared his throat. “I was responsible for discharging certain individuals whose immediate and silent removal was vital for the safety of our country.”
“You…” Her face scrunched up as she deciphered that convoluted—and well-rehearsed—bit of information. “You killed people?”
He could barely hear himself speak over the hard pounding of his heart. The truth now, he told himself, she deserved the truth. “I was an assassin.”
Her hand flew to her chest. “An…You…I don’t know what to say to that.”
He wanted to go to her. He had an almost painful urge to wrap his arms around her, to bind her to him long enough for the chance to explain, to plead his case. But he feared her resistance, her rejection, as strongly as he desired her touch. So he settled for walking to the door, turning the key in the lock, and dropping the key in his pocket.
She watched him with an eyebrow cocked. “Why would you do that?”
He walked back to stand before her and thought his words through before speaking.
“I have tried to keep you at arm’s length for this very reason. I warned you that I was not meant for you. You refused to listen.”
“If you were so very certain of it, why did you…” Two spots of pink rose high on her cheeks. “Why did we—”
“I am only a man. We made love because I wanted you, beyond reason. I proposed…because I love you.”